Duskfall (50 page)

“She’s crazy,” Astrid said, looking at Knot. “Anybody else see this? She’s completely insane.”

Winter met Knot’s eyes. They were in Winter’s room at the inn. The other humans were downstairs, eating a meal. And Lian… Winter was not sure where Lian was. That worried her—or, at least, it should have worried her a lot more than it did.

He’s probably just in the other room
, she told herself. Once she found more frost, she’d make sure he was safe. Winter had wanted to catch Knot alone before they went down, but Astrid had wedged herself into their conversation.

“She’s right, Winter,” Knot said. “You’re tiellan. You’re not going out alone.”

Winter clenched her jaw. Her eyes strayed to Knot’s pack. She had no argument against what they were saying. None that they would understand, anyway.

“Remember the Ceno monks?” Astrid said. “The men I saved you from a couple of days ago, who we just saw wandering the streets of the city in a bloody parade?”

“I just… I need to get out,” Winter said. “I can’t stay inside, it’s driving me crazy.” She looked at Knot, hoping her face was pleading. Convincing.

Innocent.

“Too dangerous,” he said. “Can’t believe you’re even trying to argue, darlin’. No room for discussion.”

“Monks?” Astrid said, looking back and forth between Winter and Knot. “Crazy psychos who want to kidnap you and kill the rest of us?”

Winter glared at the vampire. “Fine,” she said. “Whatever. I’ll meet you down there in a few minutes.”

Winter stormed out, hoping she was being dramatic enough that they would at least feel bad for not letting her go.

What’s wrong with me?
Did she really want them to feel bad for her, for wanting something so ridiculous?

A part of her was glad they had stopped her. What she asked was beyond dangerous. Astrid was right—it was insane.

Which was why what Winter did next surprised even her.

Back in her room, she closed the door behind her. Her room was on the second floor, the window overlooking a narrow alley. Winter wrapped her cloak around her tightly, pulling the hood up over her face. The drop was long, but Winter had jumped from higher places. Probably.

Winter swung her legs over the ledge, watching them dangle below her. She took a deep breath.

Then she let herself drop.

* * *

It took Winter longer than she would have liked to find the grit district, especially with a sprained ankle from the fall. She followed the telltale signs as she limped through the dreary streets. Emaciated faces, huddled forms cowering in corners and alleyways. Shifting eyes.

Winter felt outside of herself, as if she were watching someone else limp along, pulling the cloak tightly around her shoulders, hood down over her face. She should be terrified out of her mind. She was out, alone, in a human-dominated city, in a foreign land pursued by a group of deadly monks.

Yet such emotions were fleeting. Just as Winter watched someone else walk through the streets of Izet, her feelings belonged to another girl, too. They remained on the edge of her consciousness, unable to permeate. She kept walking.

Many of the people Winter passed disgusted her. Most were grit and hero addicts. These people had lost all they had for the sake of a simple powder or vial of liquid. She couldn’t imagine losing herself like that; at least she gained something when she got high. These people gained nothing, and lost everything.

She approached a pale, thin woman, eyes sunk so far into her head she looked like a skull with hair. Winter asked the woman where she could find
faltira
, using the key words and roundabout phrases she had come to know well. The woman looked at her blankly, and Winter suddenly wondered whether the woman was even alive, or whether she was speaking to a corpse. But eventually the woman raised her skeletal arm, pointing down the alley.

The dealer was easy to spot. They were always healthier than the addicts, always cleaner. Better dressed. Less desperate, more dangerous.

Winter approached the man without inhibition, fingering the dagger at her belt. She didn’t have frost to help her, but she could handle herself. She needed this, and nothing would stop her.

The man was tall and lean, and young. No older than Winter herself. He wore dark trousers, and a long dark shirt beneath a long, threadbare overcoat. He saw Winter approaching, and smiled.

“What’s your pleasure?” he asked. His eyes were a striking blue, the color of midday sky, but his smile was crooked and marred by an assortment of missing teeth.

Winter told him what she needed.

The man’s grin widened. “You’re lucky,” he said. “I’m one of the few that carries it round here. But it’s rare, even more so since the Ceno have re-emerged, and it’ll cost you a gold piece for a crystal.” Winter watched the man’s eyes look her up and down. “But I’d consider other payment, if you don’t have the gold.”

“I have the gold,” Winter said. “Let me see them first.”

The man frowned, his eyes darting. “Not here,” he said. “Follow me.” He turned into a small alleyway, looking over his shoulder.

Winter hesitated. Something tugged at her, begged her not to follow the man.

“You coming?” he asked.

Frost’s pull was too strong. Winter had to have it. She nodded, and followed. The shadows had grown tall and long as dusk approached, and the alleyway was darker than the street.
Best to get this over with as quickly as possible.

The man reached into his long overcoat. Winter was vaguely aware of her body tensing, but she relaxed when the man’s hand emerged holding a small pouch. He reached in and pulled out a crystal.

Winter stared at it, fighting herself. Her whole body hungered after the thing, as if a piece of her were missing and only that small crystal would replace it.

The man yanked the crystal away, putting it back in the pouch before Winter even realized she had been reaching for it.

“Payment,” he said.

Winter nodded, reaching for her purse beneath her cloak. Her hands found nothing.

It wasn’t there.

Panic flashed in her. Someone must have stolen it from her, picked her pocket as she…

No. It had not been stolen. She had forgotten to take it with her when she jumped out of the window. It was still at the inn, on a table in her room. She could see it clearly in her mind.

Winter stood silently, not sure what to do next. She needed frost. She needed it now.

“Well?” the man said. “Where’s the gold?”

Winter stammered a response, but she knew it wouldn’t make sense. She sounded like a witless idiot.

The man’s face grew hard, his stupid grin long gone. “No payment, no business,” he said. Then, his hand reached towards her. Winter saw more than felt his fingers brush her face, trailing down her neck.

“Unless you make a payment of a different kind.”

Before Winter could even think about what the man implied, she saw herself reach for her dagger. Hand to hilt, blade from sheath.

Winter plunged the dagger into the man’s heart.

He looked at her, eyes large and round. His face contorted, mouth opening wide in a soundless scream, wider than seemed right or possible. Winter saw the gaps in his teeth, the cracks in his lips, the tendons and muscles straining in his neck. Then he fell to the ground.

Winter withdrew the dagger, wiping it on the man’s overcoat. She reached into the coat, grasping the pouch. She opened it. Three crystals. Three would be enough. She put the pouch in a pocket in her cloak, and turned to leave the alleyway.

Winter didn’t make it three steps before she came back to herself. She felt as if she were waking from a dream. She looked down at her hands, covered in blood. She looked back at the man, lying dead.

She fell to her knees, stomach clenched, and vomited into the slush. When she was done, she collapsed on the ground. She felt the wetness of melted snow and her own vomit beneath her. She rolled over on her back, looked at the sky, and saw snow falling. She wondered when it had begun snowing. Why couldn’t she remember?

She didn’t know how long she stayed there, but slowly she realized she had to stand. She couldn’t stay like this. She stood and looked back at the man’s corpse.

Winter’s eyes widened in horror. The man was standing, looking at her. He clutched the dagger in his chest with one hand, and reached out to her with the other. Winter screamed. She turned to run but slipped and fell. She looked back at the man, but he was lying on the ground. Dead.

Murderer
.

Winter was suddenly back in Navone. She was screaming, she was picking up men and crushing their bodies together, flailing shields and spears in wide arcs and not caring how many Sons of Canta, Goddessguards, or innocents she killed. She was back in Navone, and she was a murderer.

And someone was shaking her.

Winter gasped, opened her eyes, and realized the piercing shriek she heard was her own.

“What in
Oblivion
are you doing?”

Astrid held her by the throat, shaking her, and Winter’s whole body convulsed under the vampire’s strength.

“What’s
wrong
with you? You’ve put us all in danger. You’ve risked all of our lives for your damn addiction. You realize that? Do you even know what you’re doing?”

Winter gurgled a response, but even she didn’t know what she said. What was there to say? Maybe the vampire would strangle her. Winter’s eyes flicked towards the dealer’s corpse. She did not deserve better.

“Canta rising,” Astrid whispered. “You really are insane.”

And, for the first time, Winter saw herself as she was. The person she was on the inside and the person she had been watching as if from afar came together. She saw herself, lying in an alley, in a pool of blood and her own vomit, screaming. She watched herself jump out a second-story window. She watched herself shun, sneak around, and lie to those she loved. She watched herself put her own life at risk, just as she took the lives of others. Winter watched herself with horror that only the self-aware understand. She remembered the hollow faces, the black limbs of the addicts in Cineste. She remembered what her father had told her. Those people had lost everything they cared about because they had come to care for one thing only.

And then, Winter understood. She
had
lost everything. Her husband did not know her—she would be surprised if he even cared. She had shunned her best friend. She had lost her identity; what she wanted eclipsed what and who she was. And her purpose, Winter’s desire to protect those she loved… she was doing anything but that. She had put them at risk.

Her entire life, she’d been looking for a home. Perhaps the only place in the Sfaera for her was in the slums, among dying addicts.

Astrid released her grip on Winter’s throat. Winter gasped, able to breathe once again.

“Come with me,” Astrid said. “Quickly. Quietly. There’s something you need to tell Knot. And if you don’t do it, I’ll bloody well do it for you.”

Winter knew she would.

She had to.

* * *

Winter stood in Knot’s room alone. Apparently Astrid, Knot, and Lian had all ventured out to look for her, while Cinzia, Jane, and Kovac had remained in case Winter returned. Neither Lian nor Knot had come back yet.

Winter fingered the pouch at her belt, the one she had taken from the dealer. Winter shivered. There seemed to be only pain left inside her, from the man she had killed, from what she had done in Navone, at the distance she felt from Knot and Lian, from losing her father.

She could escape that pain, though. Winter reached into the pouch, put the frost to her lips, and swallowed. She waited impatiently, hoping the high would take her away. She waited. And waited.

And waited.

After a few moments, Winter took another crystal. Still, it had no effect. Panicking, she reached into the pouch and took the last one.

Nothing happened.

The man had given her fakes, and she’d killed him for it.

Winter sat on the bed, face buried in her hands. Her cloak smelled of vomit and blood. She felt exhausted, yet her mind raged. She saw herself plunging the dagger into the man’s heart. She saw it as clearly as she saw all the death she had caused in Navone.

She
was
a murderer. She had tried to deny it before, but now…

There was another option. The dagger rested at her hip. Simple to slide it through her own heart, as easily as she had slid it through the dealer’s. She wouldn’t have to feel this way.

She looked up, and her eyes locked on the pack in the corner of the room. Knot’s pack.

Winter almost leapt towards it, emptying its contents onto the floor. The pouch of crystals wasn’t difficult to find. She held it close to her heart, felt the satisfying weight of it in her fingers. Nine or ten crystals left. Enough to keep her going for a few more days. Enough to numb her.

She raised one
faltira
crystal to her lips just as the door opened behind her.

Winter’s head swung around, and her hand dropped to her side.
Canta’s death
, she thought.
Of course this would happen
.

“Hello, princess.”

It was Lian.

Immediately Winter moved away, sitting down on the bed and wrapping her arms around herself. She was conscious of the frost in her fist, could feel its lightness.

“Where’s Knot?” Winter asked.

Lian closed the door behind him. “Not back yet.”

“If you’re going to give me some lecture about putting everyone in danger, spare me. I know what I’ve done. Last thing I need is you to rub it in my face.”

Lian only stood there, watching her.

“What do you want, Lian?”

“I want you to listen,” Lian said quietly. He sat next to her on the bed. “Look at me, Winter.”

Instinctively, Winter looked away. How could she face him after what she had done?

“Please,” he said. “I need you to see me.”

Winter realized she was shivering. She turned to look at Lian. His cheeks were wet.

“I’m so sorry,” Lian whispered, looking right into her eyes. He was leaving her; that much was obvious. Beneath the fear and the guilt, Winter was relieved. At least now he would be free of her.